May 1, 2008 - Healing the Grieving Heart Candice Lightner, Founding Mothers Against Drunk Driving

HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART
Founding Mothers Against Drunk Driving
Hosts:  Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley
With guest:  Candace Lightner
May 1, 2008
G: Hello, I’m Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley.
G: Each week Heidi and I welcome you to Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and conversation with those who’ve suffered the loss of a loved one and for healthcare professionals who work in this most difficult field.  As always the message has been others have been there before you and made it.  You can too.  You need not walk alone.  If you’re listening to our Thursday live Internet show, please join Heidi and me on the show by calling our toll free number, 1-866-472-5792, with questions or comments regarding the losses in your life.  These shows are archived on our blog, www.thegriefblog.com, as well as www.compassionatefriends.org websites.  These shows are brought to you by the Open to Hope Foundation.  All shows can be downloaded on iTunes and transcripts are accessible on the grief blog.  So if you like the show and you’ve got friends who don’t use the Internet, you can actually download those transcripts for them and give them a handout of the transcript. Well, Heidi, the Open to Hope Foundation is going along really well now. 
H: Yeah, it is.  I’m excited.
G: And what we’re doing now with the Foundation is we are looking for people who’d like to be contributing authors to our Foundation site, so if you’re a person who is a writer and is interested in writing on hope and dealing with loss and hope after loss, you might want to go on www.thegriefblog.com and there’s a place where you can make comments and you could ask for information on being a contributing author to the Open to Hope Foundation.  Well, Heidi, our poetry contest is over and we announced our winners last week.  And Kim Hodne is our winner.  We had 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, and we gave them the option of reading their poem on the air or having a friend read it.  Kim Hodne emailed us back and said she would very much like Heidi to read her poem.  And after Heidi reads the poem, we’re going to introduce our guest and I’m going to give a quick beginning introduction.  We are very honored to have Candy Lightner on the show who was the founder of MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  So, Heidi, do you want to go ahead and read our poem?
H: Yes, I’d be honored to.  Kim’s poem is in memory of her son, Trevor, and his birthday was April 5 and that’s why she wrote it.  He was born in 1979.  He would have been 29 years old this year.  And he died, unfortunately, on February 1, 2004, and he was 25 years old at the time of his death.  And this is in honor and in tribute to him.  And the poem is called “I’ve Stopped Looking for Him.”
I’ve stopped looking for him everywhere
I’m not sure when that happened
I don’t search for him in crowds
Or his car on the road
I’ve stopped looking for him
Biking on the paths
Swimming in the ocean
Skiing down the hills
I’ve stopped watching for him
To pull up the driveway
And run in with a hug
And raid the fridge
I’m not sure when this happened
A sudden turning point?
No, rather a very slow realization
That he is not coming back
I’ve stopped waiting for him
To pick up the phone
And hear his sweet voice
Recounting his week
A movie plays in my head
Of the baby, little boy
Teen and young man
And it’s enough
That I don’t need to search for him
Around every corner
He reaches me in other ways
Always a pleasant surprise
In memory of Trevor
Thank you, Kim.  That was so beautiful.
G: Yes.  Thank you so much, Kim, and all of you out there who have poetry in your hearts.  Keep writing your poetry and we will be doing another contest.  Kim’s poem, you can also read it on the Internet and if you’d like us to send you a copy, go to www.thegriefblog.com and enter that in questions or comments there.  Well, Heidi, again we have a wonderful guest today, and we’re doing something a little different today.  I have my computer on, and if you have questions or comments, we got some emails for Candace Lightner that we’ll be dealing with on the show, but also during the show now, we’ve decided that I’m going to leave my computer on and if you have emails that you would like to send in to us during the course of the show, please do that and I’ll be watching for them.  Okay, Heidi, would you like to go ahead and introduce our guest?
H: Yes, I’d love to.  Our guest today is Candace Lightner, and our topic is “Founding Mothers Against Drunk Driving.”  In 1980 Candace Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter, Cari was killed by a drunken hit-and-run driver.  The leniency of his sentence outraged Ms. Lightner who then organized Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). The object of her organization was to raise public awareness of the serious nature of drunken driving and to promote tough legislation against the crime.  The President of the United States bestowed upon her the President’s Volunteer Action Award and she was the subject of the movie “Mothers Against Drunk Driving: the Candy Lighter Story.”  Welcome to the show, Candace.
C: Well, thank you.  It’s nice to be here.
G: It’s wonderful to have you on the show.  As I said, we’re very honored to have you on because you have done so much to make some changes in our world that are very positive and moving and give hope to our other folks out there.  Well, I think we’d like to start the show having you tell your story.
C: I lived in Sacramento in Fair Oaks, a suburb of Sacramento.  And Cari and her friend Karla were on their way to a Catholic school carnival that was right down the street from us and she was walking.  They were both walking inside the bike lane.  They were hit from behind.  She was actually hit, though, and she was thrown 125 feet left in the road to die.  It was a hit and run and he kept going.  And then they found him because his wife actually turned him in.  She was a very Christian woman and he had been released from jail several hours earlier before killing my daughter from another hit and run drunk-driving crash and in that case, I think he had totaled the car so he was using her car, and when he came home, he told her not to look at the car, which of course she did, and she noticed that it had obviously been in another wreck, and so when she heard a 13-year-old child had been killed by a hit-and-run driver, they didn’t know about his drinking at the time, she called the California Highway Patrol and they came out and took the car.
H: That’s unbelievable.  So he was actually using her car because he had hit somebody else two days prior to this.
C: Correct.  Right.  Although the woman that he hit before wasn’t injured, but the car was wrecked apparently, so that’s why he wanted to use his wife’s car.
H: What I’m wondering is why was he still driving given that he had hit someone two days previously?  Nothing had been done?
C: I guess.  Unfortunately, that’s the way the laws worked at the time.  They were just not enforced.  Drunk driving wasn’t taken seriously.  It wasn’t treated as a crime.  And that was one of the things that I set about to change, which I did.
G: That’s incredible.  That was in 1980 so you must have been in your twenties or something.
C: We’ve come a long way since then.  Times have changed since then but believe it or not, that was standard and in fact he was driving on a valid California driver’s license even though I think, if I can remember.  It’s been so long ago.  He had three priors.  Cari was his fifth, I believe, if I remember correctly, and so he still had a valid California driver’s license.  In fact, hardly anything had happened to him.  I think at the most, he might have spent two days in jail, but that was it.
H: That is unbelievable.  So how many days after that, Candace, were you with friends, I think I read in a coffee shop or something, remind me, and did you decide, okay, look, I’m going to do something about this?  I want to change the laws.
C: It was actually the day after her funeral when the California Highway Patrol called me and told me that they had found the man who had killed her, and my immediate reaction was concern for his family because I didn’t know he had been drinking, and I just thought well maybe he had dropped a cigarette or something and leaned over and so I said, how is his family?  And they said, fine.  I asked them if he had any children.  They said, yes, two very close in ages to my daughters.  And so I just talked about his family and how they were doing and then we got in the car, and I’d had people there for several days and didn’t have any food in the house and so we all agreed to go out to dinner.  So I got in one car and some other friends got in another and they went on to the restaurant.  And on the way to the restaurant, we passed the site where she was killed and I saw California Highway Patrol out there marking the site.  So I asked the driver to pull over, which he did, and I got out of the car, and I said, are you investigating the death of Cari Lightner?  And they said, yes, we are.  And I said, well, I’m her mother.  And they said, oh, I guess you know.  Someone’s been arrested.  And I said, yes, I do.  And they said, well, I guess you know that he had been drinking.  And I didn’t know that but I was afraid if I told them that, they wouldn’t tell me anything more, so I said, yes, I did.  And they said, well, I guess you know he was out on bail from another hit and run drunk driving crash and I went, yes, I did.  And they said, well, and I guess you know he’s had prior drunk driving arrests and convictions.  And I went, yes, I did; and then I said, well, how long will he get in prison?  The cops kind of laughed and he said, prison?  He said, lady, you’ll be lucky to see any jail time.
G: Oh, my gosh, isn’t that amazing.
C: So, when we got to the restaurant and I met my friends, I was telling them this story, and I was just so angry, and my sister looked at me, and she said, I know you well, and I know you’re going to do something.  And I said, you’re right.  I’m going to start an organization.  And my girlfriend, Sam, turned around and said and you’re going to call it “Mothers Against Drunk Drivers,” which is what it was in the beginning and then it changed to “Drunk Driving.”  And I said, that’s right.  So it was, I think, May 7th when I did.  That was the day after the funeral.  She was killed on the 3rd, buried on the 6th.  It was May 7th and that’s when I did.
G: Oh, my goodness.  That’s an amazing story that you would start that early because Heidi and I have had experience with people telling people you can’t do things that early.  You have to wait.  Or some people feel like they have to do things really early and yet they don’t give themselves permission to wait.  So when it comes, it just comes, doesn’t it?  The idea.
C: Well, it’s interesting because in all truthfulness, what we learn from this experience is that I then told people who wanted to get involved with the organization, I would then encourage them to wait a period of time and do some mourning, so to speak, before they got involved because MADD was all consuming and it was also a great way of postponing your grief.  And I don’t know if you’ve read my book, Giving Sorrow Words: How to Cope with Grief and Get on with your Life.
H: I know that you said for five-and-a-half years you put your grief on hold.
C: Oh, exactly.
H: But on the other hand, Candace, you had the energy and the anger and the drive to get it up and running and to give it 500% of your time because in a sense your emotions were so raw at that point.
C: Well, it was a good way of dealing with my anger.  It was probably not the best way of dealing with my grief as I learned.
H: That’s a good distinction.
G: That’s very interesting.  And, you know, how long did it take?  Did you go to court when he went to court?
C: Oh, yeah.
G: How was that?  I went to court yesterday.  I do a Compassionate Friends group and there was a boy who was murdered and it’s been a year-and-a-half or two years, so they’ve been living with that whole court thing going on.  Yours was closer to the event, right?
C: It was.  I don’t remember now exactly when, but it definitely was within – let’s see, I think we ended up – she was killed in May and I think we were in court by November, and I say that because I remember at Christmas time they sent me – it was so tacky, the District Attorney’s office – one of those brown envelopes and I opened it up and there were her clothes that she had been wearing when she was killed and it said this is evidence that we had on hold.
G: We’re going to go on break now.  When we get back, I would like to go to that court case and talk about it because our audience, our people who are either going to court now or have been, and there are a lot of issues about anger and things that I think would be great to bring up.  We’re coming up on break and I’m Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host Dr. Heidi Horsley.  We’re talking to Candace Lightner.  Candace is the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving after her daughter Cari was killed by a drunk driver.  Please stay tuned for more.
Candace, welcome back.  Unfortunately, we were kind of clueless on Candace’s book and we’re going to put it up on the website, hopefully.  Her book is Giving Sorrow Words: How to Cope with Grief and Get on with your Life.  And we’ll be talking about some of Candace’s tips on how you can do this and her journey.  But first I wanted to get back.  When we went to break, we were on a cliffhanger because Cari had been killed by a drunk driver and it was after the funeral and Candace went with some friends to get something to eat, right?  Well, you stopped at the accident site and actually in a coffee shop, I guess, huh?
C: No, actually, it wasn’t.  It was in a bar, believe it or not.  We went to my favorite restaurant at the time, which is no longer there, and we had to wait in the bar for a table, and in fact, well, we’ll probably tell you about this later, but as you know the 28th anniversary of her death is coming up this Saturday and I’m going to be in Sacramento for that because we’re doing a memorial, and I wanted everybody to go to Chuck’s Steakhouse afterwards where MADD was born and it’s no longer.
G: So you went there, and what I was asking you, and I want to, by the way, bring up this 28th anniversary again because I love the idea maybe people can stop and take a moment of silence at a time and you can think about when you would want that to be, our listeners, for all of our grieving children since it’s an anniversary for you, because I think these anniversary events are so important for all of us and we’ll talk about that a little later, but what I wanted to get to right now is about the trial and how that was for you, because I know a lot of our audience have been through this kind of thing or are maybe going through it now.
C: Well, times have changed for your listeners since my case, and that’s thanks to MADD, but at the time, we weren’t allowed in the courtroom.  They didn’t want the victim’s families, the survivors, in the courtroom, and I really had to fight like hell to get in and I wanted to be there and I wanted to make a statement, which are now called “victim impact statements.”  And at that time we were discouraged from doing it.  It wasn’t standard.  It is now.  And I probably was the first to do that, frankly, in the country possibly.  And I did and my case was also a little unique and somewhat fascinating, but the wife of the man who killed my daughter never told him that she turned him in, so she gave the CHP permission to get the car.  The public defender defending him was a woman and a mother and she made a motion to dismiss the evidence because there was no search warrant and if they had dismissed the evidence, we would have lost, and so the defender went into the bathroom and I went in there with Charlene, the wife of the man who killed my daughter, and we literally pinned her up against the wall.  And I said, how can you do this?  Are you a mother?  And she said, yes, I have a daughter the same age as yours.  I said, how can you do this?  She said, that’s my job.  And Charlene said well, I’m the one who gave the California Highway Patrol permission to take the car.  She said, well, we weren’t told that, and that’s because Charlene had asked them to keep it confidential.  And she said, give me some time with my husband alone.  And she went in and told him and then that came up in court and so the motion to dismiss was dismissed.  But it was made but then that happened and the judge and I ― well, he said he’d make his decision in 48 hours ― got into the elevator together.  And if you saw the movie, this scene is so true.  And I wasn’t allowed to say anything, but I’ll tell you, I looked at him like you wouldn’t believe trying to communicate to him to dismiss the motion and to proceed onward to court and, of course, the next day came back and had learned that Charlene had given permission and all of that so they did dismiss the motion.  We never went to trial per se.  We never had a jury trial or whatever.  He plead.  But I did get my day in court so to speak.  I did get to participate and I did get to testify against the District Attorney’s advice.  The press was on my side, thank God, and so they’d made a big issue out of it so they capitulated.
G: It’s an amazing story.  How did you feel about the wife?  It sounds pretty courageous the way she handled it.
C: You know, I had mixed emotions about her.  We actually continued to communicate for a long time afterward.  I was angry with her because she let him drive her car and she knew he had a history of drunk driving.  And I considered her a participant – an accessory to the fact.  I was grateful to her for turning him in.  So I had mixed emotions about it.
H: If someone wants to get a hold of the movie, is that possible?
C: Possibly.  It shows on TV an awful lot but I think you can order it also over the Internet.  I have done so.  So I think it’s out there.
G: Okay, we can look into some of that, Heidi, the book and the movie.  Very interesting.  I wanted to read an email that we had from Carla from Florida.  We asked people if they’d like to send in some emails and she said:  Our dearest friends lost their 24-year-old daughter and her fiancé in an automobile accident 12 years ago because of drunk driving.  I was amazed to see how quickly the parents were able to forgive the inebriated man who died in the fiery crash.  On the other hand, the parent’s older son took much longer to work through his anger at losing his younger sister and soul mate.  Is this typical?  When brought to our knees, do parents somehow find forgiveness in their heart while the sibling can harbor rage and anger for a long time?  I know you’ve got a twin, right?  Cari’s twin.
C: Yeah, Cari’s identical twin, Serena.  Well, the first thing I want you to know, there is no normal in grieving so to speak.  So what one may do, someone else may not do.  I’ve dealt with parents who are angry for many years afterwards and siblings who were not.  In Cari’s case, Serena seemed to, I thought, handle it very well, and I became concerned about it, and they were both softball players and the first game after they played, they were all doing this, “let’s win it for Cari.  Let’s win it for Cari,” and unfortunately they didn’t; and I remember Serena came home and came in the door and she had her bat with her, her baseball bat, and she threw it in the living room screaming and cussing and saying, goddamn Cari, why did you die?  Why did you die?  We do cuss a lot in our family.  I remember being relieved that I had seen the outburst of anger and then she told me many years later that some years ago she actually went back to Sacramento and went to the cemetery and went to the grave and sat there and talked to her for a long time and cried.  So she did her own grieving.  She went to a therapist about a year or so later for six months, and I called the therapist who told me that she was handling it fine.  Not to worry about it, basically.  And so I didn’t.  Now, we’ve had some issues since then, which I won’t go into, of her trying to take her sister’s place, etc., which has created some problems.
H: And the whole issue of twins.  We just had a whole show on twin loss, Candace, and the whole issue of twins and how intense that relationship is.  It’s a whole other part.  Losing your twin is kind of like losing a limb to a certain extent.
G: Yeah, Serena might want to take a listen to that show.  It was a very enlightening show for me about what it means for a twin to have a loss.
H: It’s obviously everything she already knows, but for us that aren’t twins, it was fascinating to hear that, and I know I read that she was inspired by you to do a school based Students Against Drunk Driving.
C: She started the organization SADD, Students Against Drunk Driving, or Drivers I think it was at the time, and changed to Driving.  She did along with her friends and kept it going for awhile and then she lost interest as teenagers do and decided that’s not what she wanted to do and so we just had chapters pick it up and eventually it became I think Students Against Destructive Decisions based out of Boston, but MADD had a lot of SADD chapters and whatever.  But then she decided to move on with her life and that was fine.
G: Well, Candace, I wanted to do one more email before we go to break and this is from Ron from Great Falls, Montana, and he says my ex-wife was driving drunk when our daughter was killed.  It’s been four years and I still can’t forgive her.  She served a year in jail and has been out for three years.  I hear she’s drinking again.  Does Candace have any suggestions?
C: Boy, we dealt with that a lot believe it or not.  Custodial parents or non-custodial parents would get them on the weekends and they would have a drinking problem and the other parent would try and get the judge to change the custodial situation so they couldn’t take them and judges were not very sympathetic.  I’m going to tell you something.  I don’t believe in the concept of forgiveness.  Now having said that doesn’t mean that this person needs to remain angry for the rest of their life because I certainly didn’t.  But I do believe in moving on at some point in time with their life and the only thing I can tell you – and I don’t blame you, Ron, for feeling the way do.  I would, too.  And I’m sure there’s some “if only” going on in there:  If only I hadn’t let her go.  If only I had done this.  If only I hadn’t done that.  I’m sure there’s a lot of self blame and self guilt.  I had that, too, by the way.  Because I should have.  If I had picked her up and taken her to the carnival, she would be alive today, so I think you have to deal more with your only syndrome.  What you’re going through for yourself because I think part of your rage is directed at yourself.  That’s just a guess.  I’m not a therapist.  And you need to deal with that.  And if you believe in the concept of forgiveness, forgive yourself first.
G: Oh, I like that.  Forgive yourself first.  Well, Ron, thanks for the email, and it’s time for us to go to break now.  I’m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, with my co-host, Dr. Heidi Horsley.  When we come back from break, we’re going to talk more with Candace Lightner and we want to get in to some of the ideas that she has on coping and how she coped and got through the loss of her daughter, Cari, to a drunken driver.  Please stay tuned for more.
I don’t want to forget this little piece.  On the last segment, Candy was talking about May 3rd is the 28th anniversary of Cari’s death, and I thought it would be a wonderful thing, and Candace has kindly agreed that we do this, if our audience might want to stop on May 3rd and just take a moment of silence and we thought at 1:00 o’clock California time and 4:00 o’clock Eastern Standard Time.  It’ll be a time when I’ll stop and remember Scott at 1:00 in the afternoon and Heidi at 4:00 Eastern Standard Time.
H: And I was thinking 1:00, 1:30 was around the time that Cari died.  Is that correct, Candace?
C: That’s right.
H: Yeah, and I’m also thinking to honor and remember and pay tribute to all of those who have died as a result of people that have been driving drunk.
C: I think that’s a wonderful idea.
G: And we’ll put a note on our grief blog to that effect today.  Well, Candace, when we went to break, you were saying some things that I found extremely fascinating.  We had an email from Ron from Great Falls about anger and you were saying that you weren’t totally into the forgiveness thing.  Can you talk about that?
C: Oh, now, I don’t think it’s my role to forgive.  I think if they believe in a deity or God or religion or whatever, then that’s up to their God or religion to forgive if that’s the belief that they have.  I don’t think it’s my role at all.
G: So people really need to take their own path and if it is a forgiveness path or not or whatever, you’re open to how people do it, right?
C: I am.  I’m more into acceptance.  It’s kind of an old Christian philosophy.  I’m more into acceptance and although I was angry for a long time, obviously and with good reason, eventually I incorporated her death and her life as part of my life and it became one so to speak and it’s who I am and it’s what I’m about and it’s there and although I don’t get angry anymore at all, although there are times when I still grieve and I still actually grieve, and I’m still sad, in the book I talk about the grieving process.  There’s the beginning, the middle, and the rest of your life.
G: And can you tell people the name of your book.
C: Giving Sorrow Words: How to Cope with Grief and Get on with your Life.  I found after I left MADD that I was really grieving hard and I thought, my God, it’s been five-and-a-half years, and I went to a wonderful therapist who was incredibly helpful, and I did realize at the time that I had put the painful part of grieving on hold as much as possible mainly because it’s so painful.  Nobody wants to do it.  And then it was interesting because when I would run into people and I was grieving and it was obvious I was grieving, they’d say, ah, it’s been five-and-a-half years.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah.  And so people confused the list of Kubler-Ross’ stages of dying was stages of grieving and so everybody thinks you go through this at this time and that and that’s not true.  So that’s why I wrote the book was to talk about what grieving is all about and it really is the beginning, the middle, and the rest of your life, and it’s how you incorporate it.
G: Oh, I like that, the beginning, the middle, and the rest of your life.
H: And I also really like the concept that you’ve brought up that we have really not discussed and that is you can not forgive.  You don’t have to forgive to move forward.
C: I didn’t.
H: I like that, Candace.  That’s another path that you take.  You don’t have to forgive necessarily and you can also let go of some of the anger without forgiving.
C: Well, I was able to do that.  I can’t speak to everybody else because I know it’s kind of a thing that people have.  Oh, you’ve got to forgive.  You’ve got to forgive.  It never was my thing so it was easier maybe for me to do than someone else.  I think it sets up an unrealistic expectation, frankly, if you feel that you’ve got to forgive.  There’s enough going on with grief as it is.  So just do what comes naturally unless it’s harmful to someone else or yourself.
G: We’ve got another email here.  It just came up on the Net for me.  It’s Mary.  She doesn’t say where she’s from.  When you send your emails, please put in where you’re from.  She says my daughter was killed in an automobile accident after her prom two years ago.  There were six teens in the car and she was the only one who died.  Her friend’s boyfriend was driving drunk.  They are all graduating from high school this year and I can’t help but feel angry and bitter.  I have to go to graduation as I teach math at the high school.  I just don’t know if I can stand to see the driver get his diploma.  I know his friends said he felt very bad at the time but his lawyer told him not to contact our family.  I wish I was a better person and could be totally forgiving.  Can you help me?
C: Sure.  Don’t see him go get his diploma.
G: Absolutely.  That’s what I say.
C: Why do people feel they have to do these things?  You’re not a bad person because you don’t want to see someone who killed your daughter get their diploma.  So that’s a completely normal reaction.  Don’t go see it.  I wouldn’t do it.
G: I agree.
C: And don’t feel bad about it.
G: Mary, that’s the advice we’ve got for you.  I think we all concur, don’t we, Heidi?
H: Absolutely.  Yeah.
G: You don’t have to put yourself in those difficult situations if you don’t want to.  I went to court yesterday as I said with a friend whose son was murdered and she left the court at certain times because she didn’t want to hear the testimony.  That’s great.  Fine.  You don’t have to be exposed to some of this.  These kinds of things.
C: No.  No.
H: I’ve got to bring something up, too, about you, Candace.  Not only was Cari impacted by a drunk driver, but all your children have been at one point in your lives.  I’m blown away by that.  Is that correct?
C: Well, Travis was run over by an unlicensed driver when he was four years old, not a drunk driver, or at least as far as we know she wasn’t drunk, and he was in a coma and as you may or may not know, they didn’t expect him to live, and he suffered some long-term residual damage, brain injury, etc., as the result of his crash.  And then Serena and Cari were involved in a drunk-driving collision when they were two.  They were in the back of my mother’s car and she was rear-ended by a drunk driver and at that time, Serena was injured, not seriously, but she was injured enough to go to the hospital and be treated.  So both the girls have been traversed by an unlicensed driver so ask me if I’m nervous about cars.  Yes, I am.  Hugo paranoias here when it comes to driving.
H: And I read something that said that you said here this guy that killed my daughter is barred from ever owning a handgun, but he can own a car.
C: Oh, I know.  Doesn’t that just boggle you?
H: Yes, it’s very ironic.
G: I know our audience is going to wonder.  Tell us about founding MADD.  A quick shot of it.  I know people are going to wonder, how the heck did she do it?  She testified at Congress.  Where did you go?  How did you do it?  Did it just carry you or did you have to?  How did it go?
C: You know, ignorance is bliss, especially when you want to start an organization.  I think the reason it was so successful and I was able to do it is because I didn’t know any better ― absolutely did not know any better.  People would say, you can’t do this, and I’d say, sure I can.  Why not?  Or it’ll take ten years to make a difference.  No it won’t.  Why?  I had no concept.  I was incredibly naïve.  I wasn’t a registered voter.  I didn’t know politics from whatever.  And it was the reaching out.  It was the need to save another life and not let this happen again and save my other children and work through the anger because I truly did have a lot of anger.  And it worked.  It was a difficult thing to do.  I get calls all the time from people wanting to start organizations.  The first thing I say is first, look around and see if there isn’t something out there similar to what you want to do.  See if you can’t work with them.  And if you really decide you can’t and want to start something, be prepared to put your life on hold, your family on hold, and starve to death because that’s almost what I did.
H: And I’ve got to say one thing, Candace.  It more than worked.  By 1999, MADD was the largest victim advocate and anti-drunk-driving activist organization in the world.  Three million members, more than 600 chapters.
C: I’m sure that’s true.
H: Unbelievable.
C: It just had a life of its own.  After awhile, it just took off and there was no stopping it, not that you’d want to, but it was just.
H: And no stopping you.
C: No, uh uh.  I was pretty determined.  Boy was I.
H: Like they said.  You were a crusader with a cause.
C: I was.  And it was a good cause to have.
G: Now tell me what happened to you.  Did you wake up one day and say I’ve got to grieve myself?  What happened?  I know that you’re not involved with MADD now, are you?
C: I’m not involved in it in a significant way, but I talk to them all the time.  They refer calls to me.  Chuck is a good friend mine, the CEO.  Glynn Birch, the President of MADD, is going to fly in for my daughter’s memorial.
G: Oh, good.  We had him on the show.
C: Isn’t he sweet?  Ironically, his son was killed on May 3rd as my daughter was, not the same year, but the same day, which we find very ironic, and so we remain in close contact, but no, I don’t want to be.  That’s going backwards in my life, and I am not a professional victim.  I don’t make a good victim.
G: Now how did you decide that you wanted to move on?  Did you wake up one morning?
C: It had been coming for a long time.  I just was burned out and I was tired and I wasn’t seeing my children and we were getting into a lot of political stuff with the board and I was getting sick of it and it wasn’t the first time, and I just thought I don’t want to go through this anymore.  I have to tell you.  You know what my thing was?  I want to wake up one day and smell the roses.  And that’s exactly.  It’s an old cliché, but that’s exactly how I felt, and I remember the press would always say to me, well, what do you do for yourself?  And I’d say I wash out my nylons.  Because that was one thing I could do in my home environment that was so selfish and so personal and that’s how I related to myself and I thought this is really enough.  I was on the road seven days a week, 24 hours a day.  It was really all consuming, and I suppose that was good because if it hadn’t been, MADD wouldn’t be the success it is today.  But as far as it went for myself and my family, it wasn’t the greatest.  So it was really time again to move on.
G: Now, it’s been 28 years now.  Is there hope for our audience out there for a happier life?  You’re in that first year and you’re saying, I can’t live through this.
C: I’m going to tell you a story.  I worked with a foundation and I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, the Jenna Druck Foundation.  Ken Druck is a grief facilitator, lost his daughter Jenna some years ago in a horrible freak accident in India, and started this foundation for mourning, and if you haven’t had him on, you should.
G: Now what is his name?
C: Ken Druck, and he does facilitation, and he was going to be facilitating some of the Columbine parents after the tragedy and some others and asked me if I would co-facilitate with him, which I have done in the past, and I agreed to do it.  Well, this was some years ago, as you know, and Ken is very good about still remaining in his grief and being able to relate to that with people who are fresh into their grief.  I’m not.  I’ve moved so far beyond it.  So we both did this for two days and it was really interesting because I was cracking jokes, and I really was.  Tell me funny stories about your kids and going on and doing whatever, and at the end of the session, he went around the room and asked people what they thought, and they looked at him and they said, you’re where we are now, and pointed to me and said, she’s where we want to be.  She gives us hope.  And that wasn’t my intent.  I was just being me.  So you can’t tell people fresh into grief time heals all wounds.  There is hope.  You’ll get beyond this.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah.  Because you’re too grief stricken to understand that.  You’re in too much pain.  It’s like 10,000 pounds are sitting on your chest.  The only thing I can do is to say look to others who have been there and see how they are.
G: Absolutely.  Well, that’s a wonderful thought.  Let’s take one more email and then we’re going to go to break.  We’ve got an email that just came up from Susan.  She says, Heidi and Gloria, I saw you were going to have Candace Lightner on your show.  I would like to call in but I’m too upset.  My son, Ray, age 10, was killed by a hit-and-run driver a year ago while riding his bike.  The man who hit him was arrested the next day and claims that he was not even aware that he hit Ray.  He had a DUI three years ago but he says he wasn’t drunk.  We are going to trial next month and I wondered if Ms. Lightner had any advice.  My concern is that my husband is so angry that it scares me.
C: Sometimes working through the adjudication process helps when you see justice and hopefully there will be justice in this case.  And sometimes having your day in court helps.  At least I found that to be true of most of the victims that I worked with unless in fact they don’t get justice and then it’s just the opposite.  If you’re really concerned about your husband, I would recommend that you both get into therapy.  I’ve had mothers call me before who thought their husbands were going to kill the driver and, as you know, if you see the movie, I tried to.  I actually went to look for my gun to kill the man who killed my daughter when I thought he was going to get off, so I can understand that kind of rage.  I would closely monitor him.  I would make sure there are no weapons in the home.  I’m being very practical here because I’ve seen this happen.  And then I would talk to him maybe about having some therapeutic help but I do think sometimes court can be helpful but just make sure that he’s aware of how he has to behave and that he will injure the case if he becomes violent or angry in the court process.  And he doesn’t want to do that.
G: That’s great.  Well, thanks, Susan for that email, and wonderful advice from Candace Lightner.  We’re coming up now for our final break and Candace we want to ask you if there’s anything you feel like we’ve missed that we want to bring up during the show.  You can reach us through our blog, www.thegriefblog.com, and also through the Open to Hope Foundation.  Please stay tuned for more.
Well, Candace, this is our last segment, and before we close the show, I would like you to give folks the name of your book again.
C: Giving Sorrow Words: How to Cope with Grief and Get on with your Life.
G: And you’re not sure if it’s on amazon.  You think it might be.
C: I think it might be.  It was published in 1990 by Time-Warner.  It’s one of those timeless books but I have had people who have been able to get it. They’ve been able to order it through the bookstores or amazon.
G: Great.  So order that through your bookstore by Candace Lightner.  And then there’s a movie that you can try to get.  We’re not sure.  Candace thinks you can get it on the Internet.  We’ll try to look some of this up at “Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, the Candy Lightner Story.”  And do you want to tell our audience what you’re doing now?  What you’ve gone on?
C: Well, I was a realtor when Cari was killed and after leaving Matt and writing the book and doing consulting, I decided I wanted to go back into real estate which I did.  And I’m also working with the Department of Energy on educating realtors about incorporating energy efficiency into their practice.  And I’ve just developed a course, a designation for realtors called “The Energy Smart Real Estate Agent” that they can take because it think energy is a big deal and a big issue and something we all can do something about for ourselves now and for our future.  And so hence that’s what I’m doing.
G: That’s great.  Well, it’s so wonderful to hear this full cycle of journey how you have gone to think about and do other things, but you’re still in the realm of thinking about the world, aren’t you?
C: I am.  You know, once a cause activist, I think always at least for me, always an activist to some degree.  I just feel there’s so many good causes out there I’d like to do something about and I have over the years and will continue to do so until I’m buried.
G: Well, I hope that you’ll have a connection with us in the Open to Hope Foundation.
C: I’d love to.
G: Now Candace, I wanted to ask you, if you’ve got a piece of advice for our folks out there, newly bereaved, what would it be?
C: Mourn.  Grieve.  Do what you need to do.  Don’t worry about whether it’s normal or not as long as you’re not hurting yourself or someone else and you can still function barely.  Don’t try to put it off.  I know it’s painful.  Don’t worry about crying in front of other people and if you need help, ask for it.  Let people know you need help and let them know what you need.
H: Good advice.
G: Thank you so much for being on the show and we’ll put it up on our website, but on May 3rd, Candace’s daughter Cari was killed by a drunk driver and we want to honor her by having a moment of silence on May 3rd.  if you want to write it down in your book or whatever and want to have a moment of silence for all the kids and especially those family members who’ve been killed by drunk driving, we’re going to have that moment of silence at 1:00 o’clock California time and that’s 4:00 Eastern Standard Time.  So please think about joining Candace, Heidi, and myself for that moment of silence.
C: Oh, I’m sure Cari will appreciate it.  Thank you.
G: Thank you so much for being on the show, Candace, and I really appreciate it and I appreciate all the work you’ve done.
C: Oh, thank you.
G: I guess next week’s going to be Cindy Bullens and Cindy is a critically acclaimed two-time Grammy nominee.  Her inspiring widely acclaimed 1999 CD “Somewhere between Heaven and Earth” was written and recorded after the tragic death of her 11-year-old daughter Jessie.  This show is archived on our blog, www.thegriefblog.com as well as www.thecompassionatefriends.org website.  We hope that you’ll visit us on the Open to Hope Foundation, and if you’re interested in joining us more with the Foundation, you might contact us through www.thegriefblog.com and look into being a contributing author to the site.  Please stay tuned again next Thursday at 9:00 Pacific Standard Time, 12:00 Eastern Standard Time for more of Healing The Grieving Heart, a show of hope, renewal and support.  Remember, others have been there before you and made it, you can, too.  You need not walk alone.  Thanks for listening.  I’m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, with my co-host
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley.  Candace, although Cari is gone, she is never forgotten.  She lives on in your memories and in all the work you have done to prevent further senseless killings by getting those driving drunk off the streets.  Thank you for your dedication.